Otto Kruger (September 6, 1885 – September 6, 1974) was an American actor who began his career in 1915. His career was most prolific during the 1930s and 1940s. The grandnephew of South African pioneer and president Paul Kruger, Otto Kruger was musically trained, but switched careers and becamne an actor. Making his Broadway debut at the age of fifteen, Kruger quickly became a matinee idol. Though he started to get noticed in the early 1920s, it was the 1930s when his career was at its height, including an appearance in the film Chained (1934) with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. Though he played the hero on occasion, for most of his career, he played the main villain or a charming or corrupt businessman. One of his best known roles was in the Douglas Sirk film Magnificent Obsession (1954). Among his television appearances were roles in episodes of the NBC science fiction/adventure series The Man and the Challenge as Dr. Mumford ("Experiments in Terror", 1959) and as Franklyn Malleson Ghentin James Whitmore's The Law and Mr. Jones ("A Fool for a Client", 1961) on ABC. He retired in the 1960s. Kruger died on his 89th birthday. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.